Cardinal Burke back at Vatican high court _ but as adviser

VATICAN CITY (AP) – One of Pope Francis’ leading conservative critics, American Cardinal Raymond Burke, is getting a second life at the Vatican high court he headed until Francis removed him in 2014.

Francis appointed Burke as a member of the Apostolic Signatura on Saturday. Members serve as advisers to the court, which currently is headed by a longtime Vatican diplomat, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti.

Francis removed Burke as the court’s prefect in 2014 and named him envoy to the Knights of Malta lay religious order. The pope then effectively sidelined Burke from that job this year after he intervened in a condom scandal that led to a governance crisis in the order.

In this Nov. 15, 2016 photo, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, the newly-elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks at a news conference at the USCCB’s annual fall meeting in Baltimore. DiNardo urged the Vatican to be “forthcoming with more details,” on its recalling of one of its diplomats from the United States following a notification in August by the US State Department of a “possible violation of laws relating to child pornography images” by one of its diplomats. On Friday, Sept. 29, 2017 police in Canada issued an arrest warrant for the Vatican diplomat Carlo Capella in a child pornography investigation. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Burke continues to work as a canon lawyer and most recently headed the Vatican sex abuse investigation of Guam’s suspended archbishop.